The portrait
by usagisnape
Summary: Snape is in love with a person who is not real ... Sound familiar?


Here is a story that all Snape lovers can relate to.  
  


The portrait  
  


In the lower levels of the dungeons, covering the entrance to a private potions lab that very few people knew about, hung a portrait. Not just any portrait, then again, no paintings in Hogwarts were just any portraits. The portrait was titled "La Pucelle." There was a young woman in the portrait, Jehanne d'Arc. She paced restlessly around a room, dressed in a soldiers attire. One of the more unique qualities of this painting was that the subject, although she could move and speak, didn't seem to be able to hear the viewers and therefore, never interacted with the outside world. She was perpetually trapped in her cell pacing back and forth waiting to be moved to another prison.

"Oh Joan. Twenty years I have been coming down here and you still won't talk to me." Severus Snape stared at the painting and at the woman he was convinced he loved. Her shortish hair shining in the light that came from the windows, the clothing that was not meant for her, but looked so good, hugged her young body, her voice melodic as she continually talked to herself, making brilliant observations and deductions. Beautiful, moral, and intelligent, she was everything he wanted in a woman, well everything but a pulse. She had been dead over 500 years before he even found out she existed once. Now... now he stood and mooned over her picture for at least ten minutes, almost everyday.

He wasn't sure what had happened, but he had developed an obsession with the historical figure when he was a student. He had been tricked into taking muggle studies, that was another story, and had found out about her, at the same time they had been studying her in history of magic. It seemed she really was a witch, but denounced her magic. For whatever reason, that only made him love her more. So he had a couple of weeks full of Joan and he had dome almost every report that year on her. Causing quite a bit of talk between the teachers. That was when he had been shown the painting. He took the fact that she was in front of a potions lab as a sign and began focusing everything he had on potions. Still she didn't speak to him.

"Does she think I'm just a voice? Is she deaf? Is there some reason she can not hear me?" He had asked those questions to everyone in the castle hundreds of times and to her and himself at least a thousand. His short time away from Hogwarts after graduation had been horrible for him. He couldn't see her and he desperately wanted to. The relief washed over him when he got the job as potions master. Of course there were other things at stake, other problems to worry about, but in his mind, he only wanted to see her again. TO stare longingly at the portrait made him happier than anything else he could do. 

It was the time after, when he had to leave her that he was so unhappy. "I could be with Joan, but here I am, wandering around looking for students. Teaching would be such a great job if it weren't for the students." He laughed to himself. 

Christmas was over and all the students were back. He would have to be on the look out for snogging couples who hadn't seen each other all Christmas. He heard a small laugh down the hall. "Ah there's one now." He increased his pace, hoping to catch two Gryffindors, well one was a Gryffindor, but he couldn't take points off.

"I really like it Hermione, you look so different."

"Thanks Justin, it's amazing what a little hair cut can do for you." Snape rounded the corner and found himself staring at the head boy and head girl. "Oh sorry Professor, we only stopped for a second." She turned to leave.

"Ms. Granger, what are you wearing?"

"Oh, I talked to Professor Dumbledore, he said we didn't have to wear the robes at night if we didn't want to. These are my regular clothes."

"They look like muggle boys clothes." He tried to sneer but was having a hard time.

"Oh, well, it's normal muggle attire, maybe a little casual. If it bothers you I can go put on my robes." Snape reclaimed his usual sneer and pompous attitude.

"Nothing you do 'bothers' me Ms. Granger. I couldn't care less if you did your rounds in your nightdress." He turned and stalked away, leaving a fuming Hermione and a confused Justin.


End file.
